Can We Foresee Where Work Is Going?

by Peter Cosgrove, MD of Futurewise Ltd.

A failure to foresee can have terrible but often easy to anticipate consequences. Take Balloonfest ’86, when an attempt was made to set a Guinness World Record by releasing 1.5 million balloons into the sky. After six months of planning, on September 27th, 1986, the helium balloons were released in the public square to much applause. Within an hour the city and surrounding areas were inundated by descending garbage; numerous balloons drifted onto the city airport’s runway and grounded air traffic, thousands more wreaked chaos on the roads. Tragically, two fishermen lost their lives as Coast Guard rescuers struggled to locate them amidst the sea of balloons adrift on Lake Erie.

Notwithstanding the wonderful and positive evolution of hybrid working, as we continue to grapple with this new world of work, employers need to see if their own firms are suffering as we fail to anticipate some obvious consequences.

Screen epidemic: The average adult 10 hours a day looking at a screen, by comparison, we spend 17 minutes a day exercising. We regularly see people walking while staring at a screen, as others navigate out of their way. Working from home may have given more work flexibility but much of the research is highlighting that people are spending more time at their desk and struggle to untether from screens even in their downtime.

Creativity: the screen epidemic also bleeds into the whole area of creativity and innovation which more and more is a seemingly core value of all organisations. Much creativity comes in that period after reflection or boredom as while you are bored your mind is still working. However, we rarely look up and we are rarely bored as the moment we have nothing to do, the screen takes over.

Relationships: Relationships take time and cannot be fast tracked and while many love the simplicity of Teams and Zoom calls, it is the messiness of real-life conversation that start to build trust which is necessary in all workplaces. We now have growing industries like “rent a friend” a service which never needed to exist; and the mukbang trend (most prominent in Korea). Mukbang: translates to “eating broadcast”, where professional mukbangers can make up to $10,000 a month from people watching them eat. Let that digest, pardon the pun!

As an employer you will now have your policy on hybrid / remote working and hopefully you are constantly tweaking and changing things to fit your organisations needs. However, it’s important to look up and see the day-to-day employee habits. In short, are your employees exercising less, on their screens more and having less quality interactions with their colleagues? Also, are the ideas flowing?

As I said at the start, this work evolution is amazing for the long term, but we do need to see what some of the short-term challenges can be. Start scrutinising the day-to-day behaviours of your employees. The good news is that we will be spared another balloon disaster as the Guinness Book of record no longer recognises balloon releases as world records. Cleveland will keep that record but it’s more infamy than fame that they have garnered.

About the author

Peter Cosgrove leads Futurewise and is an expert on future trends and a much sought-after speaker on talks related to the future of work. He has over 25 years business experience on executive teams as well as on not for profit boards as board member and Chairman. He has been Chair of Junior Achievement Ireland, the National Recruitment Federation and currently serves on the 30% Club Steering Committee tackling gender balance and is Vice Chairman of Aware, a leading mental health charity. Peter has served as a Board adviser for a number of Staffing organisations and has been a contributor to the Expert Group on Future Skills.